I hightailed it down to Asheville a few weeks ago to catch up on lost time. I hadn’t seen Heather Spencer or Charles Murray for a few years. I have watched their garden grow, off and on, for at least 35 years. It never looked better than it did on this short visit.
Charles Murray and Heather Spencer drive away from Holbrook Farm with a load of plants in 1990
Hopeful
There is much to catch up on whenever we are together. We tell stories, gossip, laugh, obsess over plants and worry about the future of our gardens.
We are neither dull nor naïve, but we have reached our twilight.
Why are we planting, thinning out, pruning, weeding, dead heading, and dragging hoses around more madly than ever?
Heather and Rose Cooper in 2003
Conversations come around to wondering whether we are deluding ourselves.
This gardening season was markedly earlier than usual. An extraordinary “flash freeze” sent the temperature plummeting from 50F (10 C) to below zero (-20 C) within hours near Christmas. Many evergreens, both broadleaf and needleleaf, were defoliated, but most are slowly recovering.
One of the driest but mildest early springs followed.
Throw the havoc of unpredictable climate change into the mix with aging bodies and doctor appointments and, you might ask, how can gardening be so compelling still?
Joy of place
Blooming red opium poppies, yellow foxgloves, nicotianas and an old wheelbarrow tree.
Opium poppy seed pods
Digitalis grandiflora
The wheelbarrow tree in 2007
The poppies, yellow foxgloves and flowering tobacco are self-sowers. The old cigar tree (Catalpa bignoniodes) fell down a few years ago and is lying prone now, a quirky reminder of the past and future. The wheelbarrows are rusting steadily. So are we.
The wheelbarrow tree in early June
Heather and Charles, both retired doctors, have been planting their gardens and woodlands since 1986. I first met them as customers at my Holbrook Farm and Nursery in nearby Fletcher, NC. You don’t forget you favorite customers. They loaded up their Chrysler Sebring convertible full of my plants, more times than I can remember.
Charles and Heather in 2006
My 14’ x 32’ propagation house, first built in 1981, was adopted by Heather and Charles in 1995 when I closed the nursery. They have birthed thousands more plants here—seedlings, cuttings and grafted Japanese maples (Charles is an expert). They are cradled, weaned, and planted out all around their 16 acres.
The title greenhouse in 2006
I saw many of these plants on my recent visit. I had grown some of them at Holbrook Farm. It was a joyous reunion. I had long ago lost the easy-to grow Arabis procurrens, a sweet little rock garden plant, tolerant of heat and humidity. Evergreen patches were everywhere.
Heather gave me the green light.
I dug a few pieces.
I also took divisions of the tiny, thumb-sized Solomon’s seal (Polgyonatum humile) that had previously been little more than slug bait at Holbrook Farm. Theirs looked perfect. Mine got hit with a one-two punch the following week. Leaves were perforated by slugs, and the little Solomon’s seal was knocked out days later by rabbits. (Well, one rabbit. There wasn’t enough for two to chew on.)
Heather pointed to a yellowwood (Cladrastis kentuckea) that had left my nursery, in a convertible with the top down, as a three-foot whip in 1988 and is now close to 50 feet tall. It had been a big bloom year for yellowwoods. Fragrant, hanging white “wisteria-like” flowers abounded.
I felt like a proud parent who had raised a child with unstinting devotion, and was now seated, and smiling, in the front row on graduation day.
At moments like these, the brain goes funny and there is only happiness.
Friends are the best. Friends who love gardens are the best best.
No doubt about it.
The last line made me cry.The realities of aging with its cumulative losses can be overwhelming at times. But there are also many cumulative joys, such as the sapling maturing into a tree. May you have many more moments of your brain “going funny” and sharing your “pure joy” with others as you did today.
Yes, the last line. I agree, there is probably a dopamine surge in the brain that occurs when old bonds are renewed. It’s a beautiful, wonderful thing.
Your career has allowed you to meet so many people and make long time friends. How fun is it to see your plants mature into majestic trees or treasured specimens. True gardeners always remember where they obtained their plants, especially from someone or somewhere special. I think everyone worries about aging and what will happen to their gardens. Perhaps this is what drives us to carry on until we no longer can. It’s our legacy, short term maybe but always there.
The only delusions are the ones entertained by those who think none of this matters.
How touching! It’s fun to remember our pasts through the plants and people we have loved. I enjoyed seeing pics of them (total strangers, but you made them seem like friends to all!) and plants through the years. Really enjoyed this!
So happy that you were able to get out to see them and visit just a few of the plants you brought into their world. I can’t help but imagine how many more of your progeny must be out there, like that yellowwood, all grown up, living their best lives and doing great things. Well done, Allen!
Absolutely LOVED the wheelbarrow tree!
My husband found a sprouted northern red oak acorn in our veggie patch the first year we lived in our current house.(1983) He planted it at the corner of the front lawn and it thrived. Our children had their pictures taken in front of it the first day of school for many years. It’s now over 40 ft. tall. It has survived oak twig borers, freezes in late May, ice storms in Jan. and winds from the “wrong” direction. Old friends, like trees are to be treasured. And I love Joe Schmitt’s comment. It’s also interesting that this rant came soon after the one on cemeteries and alternatives…perhaps gardeners would rather be under yellowoods or oaks instead?